Multicultural Marketing: Why One Size

Doesn't Fit All

by Jim Stachura, Meg Murphy

Published on October 25, 2005

Tags: Copywriting, International Marketing, Surveys, Targeting, Testing

As the general population in the US continues to become more diverse, with ethnic Americans of African, Asian, and Hispanic

descent making up 25% of the population, the days of one-size-fits-all marketing are gone forever.

Today, marketers are much more aware of the significant opportunity that the varying demographic groups present. What's

more, they realize that they can no longer afford to neglect the combined buying power of ethnic Americans who, according to

estimates, make up $1.3 trillion, or 18.5%, of all US buying (www.americanmulticultural.com). To appeal to these highly

lucrative and diverse audiences, marketers are abandoning traditional mass-marketing practices in favor of laser-focused,

multicultural marketing efforts.

Multicultural marketing is defined as targeting and communicating to ethnic segments based on their own cultural framework.

The opportunity cost of not creating a multicultural marketing strategy can translate into staggering losses for businesses,

through the misinterpretation of marketing messages, the loss or damage to the brand image or, worse, the risk of customer

alienation and defection.

Given that the ethnic diversity in the US is far more reflective of a global landscape, it is even more imperative for marketers to

fully understand cultural differences, language treatments and purchase-drivers and to integrate those variations into their

everyday marketing strategies and tactics.

While it has always been second nature for marketers to leverage surveys to quantify everything from general product interest

to pricing and packaging, these surveys are even more valuable in creating and supporting multicultural marketing efforts.

Before engaging in your own initiative, be sure that you understand the following issues—and ensure that you leverage this

knowledge to develop strategies that appeal to each unique demographic.

Show me you know me

Multicultural marketing is no different from other marketing in that marketers must research, plan, develop and execute their

campaigns based on feedback from their various audiences. After all, what may be appealing to one culture might have the

opposite effect on another. To avoid alienating customers, marketers are now applying Web survey technology to pre-test

everything from overall messaging to creative layout in order to appeal to a variety of audiences.

However, language is just one part of the overall communication process. To facilitate cultural adaptations, the savvy marketer

starts with awareness and understanding—something that can be easily achieved by surveying and pre-testing assumptions to

better define and use the right mix of cultural variables.

These variables could include something as simple as using multicultural faces in your campaign photography in order to

increase the rapport between your organization and your audience, or adjusting color preferences and graphic presentation

forms to increase the effectiveness of your Web site presentation. To achieve a competitive edge in campaigns, marketers

must understand the cultural differences and lifestyle characteristics of Latino versus Asian versus African, and so on.

Another lifestyle variable that marketers must also consider is timing, particularly because holidays vary according to both

country and culture. Targeting a campaign around a holiday often requires timing adjustments. For example, Mother's Day is

observed on a different day in Latin American countries than in the US. While some US-based Latinos have adopted the local
 date, others have not. To meet the needs of various Latino audiences, savvy multicultural marketers may choose to spread the

campaign over a longer period to cover the date range based on the preferences identified in their survey research.

Finally, variables such as language can affect the market research process itself. For instance, when Leica Surveying and

Engineering (a global provider of high-end surveying and measurement equipment) sought to gather competitive intelligence in

its industry, it initially deployed surveys only in English, because the company's business was typically conducted in English,

even across several different European countries.

However, the response rate was dismal, even though the sample comprised individuals who had an affinity with the company.

Closer review showed that the in-country sales representatives conducted business in their native languages. Consequently,

the company redeployed the survey in various languages, such as Spanish and German, and the response rate doubled almost

overnight.

Talk to me in ways I will understand

Certain brand names or taglines have completely different meanings when translated into various languages. For instance, the

Dairy Association's huge success with the campaign titled "Got Milk?" prompted them to expand their advertising efforts to

Mexico. Unfortunately, it soon realized that the translated version of the popular slogan said "Are you lactating?"

Alternatively, the absence of language can also be the barrier. For example, when a major consumer packaged goods

manufacturer started selling baby food in Africa, the company decided to use the same packaging as in the US, with a smiling

baby on the label. Later, they learned that in Africa, because many consumers are unable to read English, companies routinely

put pictures on the labels of what is inside.

So before inadvertently insulting or alienating people due to innocent, yet damaging, language errors—be mindful of some

basic rules and use surveys to validate messages and language prior to execution:

1. Conduct local background research for each market and for every language that you plan to target. After all,

one Spanish-speaking country will have words and interpretations that are different from another. For example, Portuguese in

Brazil is different from the Portuguese in Portugal, and Parisian French is different from the French of Belgium, Switzerland and

Quebec. The language differences are even further exacerbated when working with the languages of the Middle East, Africa,

Asia and beyond.

2. Never underestimate the importance of translation. At a minimum, marketers must ensure that their translations

are done by translation experts who understand how to write marketing copy. It is no longer enough to use a native-speaker,

journalist or other professional writer. Today, the translator should be a trained copywriter as well. Before executing a campaign

blind, be sure to validate through focus groups and surveys.

3. Test, test and test again. Before spending time, money and resources, make sure that both you and your customer

are in synch. It is better to leverage surveys and measure the effectiveness of your efforts prior to launching a major campaign.

Not only will this maximize your efforts and save money but also, and more importantly, it might preserve your brand from a

multicultural misstep.

Appeal to my instincts

One of the most common mistakes of multicultural marketing is to assume that a specific call to action will appeal to all targets.

With online surveys, marketers are able to identify how one culture might respond stronger to a certain offer or value

proposition, while another may be more motivated to buy based on manufacturer's reputation or product feature-set.

Sometimes you learn this by accident. For instance, a global manufacturer of GIS and mapping equipment wanted to survey

customers and prospects to find out how it stacked up against competitors. As a part of this questionnaire, it wanted to ensure

that specific demographics such as country of residence were included, in order to track survey response rates. As a result,
and because researchers are curious by nature, they performed a subsequent segmentation analysis that found stark

differences in preferences for product features across geographic regions (e.g., respondents from Asia and the Pacific Rim

were much more likely to think depth of features was important in making purchase decisions, whereas their European

counterparts favored ease of use).

Another consideration for marketers is whether to incorporate humor into the marketing message. The appropriate and effective

use of humor is a particular challenge in multicultural marketing, because what might be considered hysterical in one culture

could be deeply offensive in another. However, remember one simple principle, and you are likely to avoid the pitfalls of

misplaced humor: Use humor about situations, not people.

It really is a small world after all

When marketers attempt a one-size-fits-all approach, they fail. Multicultural marketers know that they need to talk the talk and

walk the walk in order to be effective.

For instance, the United Nations Federal Credit Union (UNFCU), which traditionally conducts surveys mostly by mail, decided

to leverage the Web. It realized that as a result of the various distribution mechanisms, it needed to statistically weight the data

to correct for a potential response bias from checking-account users. To avoid this potential bias, it used a respondent

authentication filter that enabled it to discover that members outside the US were significantly more likely than their US

counterparts to respond to the Web-based survey. Without this insight, the research results would have been biased, potentially

leading to some poor decisions by the credit union's marketers.

By leveraging the global reach of Web surveys, marketers can identify key drivers that exist in various cultures and grow their

business by appealing to discrete segments and unique audiences. With a little bit of knowledge and know-how, marketers can

create extremely effective messages that resonate on a personal level with each consumer

Read more: http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2005/1652/multicultural-marketing-why-one-size-doesnt-fit-

all#ixzz1lU6F1pDY

Social class
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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 Middle-range · Mathematical
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Cities · Class · Crime · Culture

Deviance · Demography · Education
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 v
 d
 e

Social class (or simply "class") is a set of concepts in the social sciences and political theory
centered around models of social stratification in which people are grouped into a set of
hierarchical social categories.[1]
Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists,
anthropologists and social historians. However, there is not a consensus on the best definition
of the term "class", and the term has different contextual meanings. In common parlance, the
term "social class," is usually synonymous with "socio-economic class," defined as: "people
having the same social, economic, or educational status," e.g., "the working class"; "an
emerging professional class."[2]
Contents
[hide]

 1 Etymology
 2 Theoretical models
o 2.1 Marxist
o 2.2 Weberian
o 2.3 The common three-stratum
model
 2.3.1 Upper class
 2.3.2 Middle class
 2.3.3 Lower class
 3 Consequences of class position
o 3.1 Education
o 3.2 Health and nutrition
o 3.3 Employment
o 3.4 Police and the courts
 4 Class conflict
 5 Classless societies
 6 Relationship between race and class
 7 See also
o 7.1 Class by region or historical
period
 8 References
 9 Further reading

[edit] Etymology
The term "class" is etymologically derived from the Latin classis, which was used by census
takers to categorize citizens by wealth, in order to determine military service obligations.[3]
In the late 19th century, the term "class" began to replace hereditary classifications (such as
estates, rank, and orders) as the primary means of organizing society into hierarchical
divisions. This corresponded to a general decrease in significance ascribed to hereditary
characteristics, and increase in the significance of wealth and income as indicators of position
in the social hierarchy.[4][5]

[edit] Theoretical models

Definitions of social classes reflect a number of sociological perspectives, informed by
anthropology, economics, psychology, and sociology. The major perspectives historically
have been Marxism and Functionalism. The common stratum model of class divides society
into a simple hierarchy of working class, middle class and upper class. Within academia, two
broad schools of definitions emerge: those aligned with 20th-century sociological stratum
models of class society, and those aligned with the 19th-century historical materialist
economic models of the Marxists and anarchists.[6][7][8]
Another distinction can be drawn between analytical concepts of social class, such as the
Marxist and Weberian traditions, and the more empirical traditions such as socio-economic
status approach, which notes the correlation of income, education and wealth with social
outcomes without necessarily implying a particular theory of social structure.[9]
[edit] Marxist
Main article: Class in Marxist theory

"[Classes are] large groups of people differing from each other by the place they occupy in a historically
determined system of social production, by their relation (in most cases fixed and formulated in law) to the
means of production, by their role in the social organization of labor, and, consequently, by the dimensions
of the share of social wealth of which they dispose and the mode of acquiring it."
Vladimir Lenin, A Great Beginning - June, 1919

For Marx, class has three primary facets:[10]

1. Objective factors: A class shares a common relationship to the means of production.

2. Subjective factors: The members will necessarily have some perception ("class
consciousness") of their similarity and common interest. Class consciousness is not simply an
awareness of one's own class interest but is also a set of shared views regarding how society
should be organized legally, culturally, socially and politically.
3. Reproduction of class relations: Class is a set of social relationships that is reproduced from
one generation to the next.

In Marxist theory, the capitalist stage of production consists of two main classes: the
bourgeoisie, the capitalists who own the means of production, and the much larger proletariat
(or 'working class') who must sell their own labour power (See also: wage labour). This is the
fundamental economic structure of work and property (See also: wage labour), a state of
inequality that is normalised and reproduced through cultural ideology.
Marxists explain the history of "civilized" societies in terms of a war of classes between those
who control production and those who produce the goods or services in society. In the
Marxist view of capitalism, this is a conflict between capitalists (bourgeoisie) and wage-
workers (the proletariat). For Marxists, class antagonism is rooted in the situation that control
over social production necessarily entails control over the class which produces goods—in
capitalism this is the exploitation of workers by the bourgeoisie.[citation needed]
Marx himself argued that it was the goal of the proletariat itself to displace the capitalist
system with socialism, changing the social relationships underpinning the class system and
then developing into a future communist society in which: "..the free development of each is
the condition for the free development of all." (Communist Manifesto) This would mark the
beginning of a classless society in which human needs rather than profit would be motive for
production. In a society with democratic control and production for use, there would be no
class, no state and no need for money.[citation needed]
[edit] Weberian
Main article: Three-component theory of stratification
Max Weber formulated a three-component theory of stratification, that saw political power as
an interplay between "class", "status" and "group power". Weber believed that class position
was determined by a person's skills and education, rather than by their relationship to the
means of production. Both Marx and Weber agreed that social stratification was undesirable,
however where Marx believed that stratification would only disappear along with capitalism
and private property, Weber believed that the solution lay in providing "equal opportunity"
within a competitive, capitalist system.[11][12]
Weber derived many of his key concepts on social stratification by examining the social
structure of Germany. He noted that contrary to Marx's theories, stratification was based on
more than simply ownership of capital. Weber examined how many members of the
aristocracy lacked economic wealth yet had strong political power. Many wealthy families
lacked prestige and power, for example, because they were Jewish. Weber introduced three
independent factors that form his theory of stratification hierarchy; class, status, and
power[13]:

 Class: A person's economic position in a society. Weber differs from Marx in that he does not
see this as the supreme factor in stratification. Weber noted how managers of corporations or
industries control firms they do not own; Marx would have placed such a person in the
proletariat.
 Status: A person's prestige, social honor, or popularity in a society. Weber noted that
political power was not rooted in capital value solely, but also in one's individual status. Poets or
saints, for example, can possess immense influence on society with often little economic worth.
 Power: A person's ability to get their way despite the resistance of others. For example,
individuals in state jobs, such as an employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or a
member of the United States Congress, may hold little property or status but they still hold
immense power.

[edit] The common three-stratum model

Today, concepts of social class often assume three general categories: a very wealthy and
powerful upper class that owns and controls the means of production; a middle class of
professional workers, small business owners, and low-level managers; and a lower class, who
rely on low-paying wage jobs for their livelihood and often experience poverty.

[edit] Upper class

Members of the upper class generally wield much greater political power than members of the
lower or middle class. Pictured here are U.S. President George W. Bush and World Bank President
James Wolfensohn.

Main article: Upper class

See also: Elite, Aristocracy, and Oligarchy

The upper class[14] is the social class composed of those who are wealthy, well-born, or both.
They usually wield the greatest political power. In some countries, wealth alone is sufficient
to allow entry into the upper class. In others, only people born into certain aristocratic
bloodlines are considered members of the upper class, and those who gain great wealth
through commercial activity are looked down upon as nouveau riche. The upper class is
generally contained within the wealthiest 1 or 2 percent of the population. Members of the
upper class are often born into it, and are distinguished by immense wealth which is passed
from generation to generation in the form of estates.[15] Sometimes members of the upper
class are called "the one percent".

[edit] Middle class

Main article: Middle class

The middle class are the most contested of the three categorizations, the broad group of
people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the lower class and
upper class.[16] One example of the contestation of this term is that In the United States
"middle class" is applied very broadly and includes people who would elsewhere be
considered lower class. Middle class workers are sometimes called "white-collar workers".
Theorists such as Ralf Dahrendorf have noted the tendency toward an enlarged middle class
in modern Western societies, particularly in relation to the necessity of an educated work
force in technological economies.[17] Perspectives concerning globalization and
neocolonialism, such as dependency theory, suggest this is due to the shift of low-level labour
to developing nations and the Third World.[18]

[edit] Lower class

Working class people often live in decaying, crime-ridden urban areas with low-quality civil services.

Main article: Working class

Lower class (occasionally described as working class) are those employed in low-paying
wage jobs with very little economic security.
The working class is sometimes separated into those who are employed but lacking financial
security, and an underclass—those who are long-term unemployed and/or homeless,
especially those receiving welfare from the state. The latter is analogous to the Marxist term
"lumpenproletariat".[14] Members of the working class are sometimes called blue-collar
workers.

[edit] Consequences of class position

A person's socioeconomic class has wide-ranging effects. It may determine the schools they
are able to attend, the jobs open to them, who they may marry, and their treatment by police
and the courts.[citation needed]
[edit] Education
A person's social class has a significant impact on their educational opportunities. Not only
are upper-class parents able to send their children to exclusive schools that are perceived to
be better, but in many places state-supported schools for children of the upper class are of a
much higher quality than those the state provides for children of the lower classes.[19][20][21][22]
[23][24]
This lack of good schools is one factor that perpetuates the class divide across
generations.
[edit] Health and nutrition
A person's social class has a significant impact on their physical health, their ability to
receive adequate medical care and nutrition, and their life expectancy.[25][26][27]
Lower-class people experience a wide array of health problems as a result of their economic
status. They are unable to use health care as often, and when they do it is of lower quality,
even though they generally tend to experience a much higher rate of health issues. Lower-
class families have higher rates of infant mortality, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and
disabling physical injuries. Additionally, poor people tend to work in much more hazardous
conditions, yet generally have much less (if any) health insurance provided for them, as
compared to middle and upper class workers.[28]
[edit] Employment
The conditions at a person's job vary greatly depending on class. Those in the upper-middle
class and middle class enjoy greater freedoms in their occupations. They are usually more
respected, enjoy more diversity, and are able to exhibit some authority. Those in lower
classes tend to feel more alienated and have lower work satisfaction overall. The physical
conditions of the workplace differ greatly between classes. While middle-class workers may
"suffer alienating conditions" or "lack of job satisfaction", blue-collar workers are more apt to
suffer alienating, often routine, work with obvious physical health hazards, injury, and even
death.[29]
[edit] Police and the courts
Proletarians, and especially people with low socio-economic status, are much more likely to
be beaten or detained by the police. They are additionally much less likely to receive a fair
trial, and are imprisoned more often than the bourgeoisie or people with high socio-economic
status.

[edit] Class conflict

This section requires expansion.

Main article: Class conflict

For Marx, the history of class society was a history of class conflict. He pointed to the
successful rise of the bourgeoisie, and the necessity of revolutionary violence—a heightened
form of class conflict—in securing the bourgeoisie rights that supported the capitalist
economy.
Marx believed that the exploitation and poverty inherent in capitalism were a pre-existing
form of class conflict. Marx believed that wage labourers would need to revolt to bring about
a more equitable distribution of wealth and political power.[30][31]

[edit] Classless societies

Main article: Classless society

This section requires expansion.

[edit] Relationship between race and class

Main article: Racial inequality

Race and other large-scale groupings can also influence class standing. The association of
particular ethnic groups with class statuses is common in many societies. As a result of
conquest or internal ethnic differentiation, a ruling class is often ethnically homogenous and
particular races or ethnic groups in some societies are legally or customarily restricted to
occupying particular class positions. Which ethnicities are considered as belonging to high or
low classes varies from society to society. In modern societies strict legal links between
ethnicity and class have been drawn, such as in apartheid, the caste system in Africa, and in
the position of the Burakumin in Japanese society.[citation needed]

Social stratification
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

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Middle-range · Mathematical
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Deviance · Demography · Education
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 v
 d
  e

In sociology, social stratification is a concept involving the "classification of persons into

groups based on shared socio-economic conditions ... a relational set of inequalities with
economic, social, political and ideological dimensions."[1]
In modern Western societies, stratification is broadly organized into three main layers: upper
class, middle class, and lower class. Each class may be further subdivided into smaller classes
(e.g. occupational).[2]
These categories are particular to state-based societies as distinguished from, for instance,
feudal societies composed of nobility-to-peasant relations. Stratification may also be defined
by kinship ties or castes. For Max Weber, social class pertaining broadly to material wealth is
distinguished from status class which is based on such variables as honor, prestige and
religious affiliation. Talcott Parsons argued that the forces of societal differentiation and the
following pattern of institutionalized individualization would strongly diminish the role of
class (as a major stratification factor) as social evolution went along. It is debatable whether
the earliest hunter-gatherer groups may be defined as 'stratified', or if such differentials began
with agriculture and broad acts of exchange between groups. One of the ongoing issues in
determining social stratification arises from the point that status inequalities between
individuals are common, so it becomes a quantitative issue to determine how much inequality
qualifies as stratification.[3]

Contents
[hide]

 1 Sociological overview
o 1.1 Karl Marx
o 1.2 Max Weber
 2 Anthropological overview
o 2.1 Kinship-orientation
 3 Social impact
 4 Three characteristics of stratified
systems
 5 See also
 6 References
 7 External links

[edit] Sociological overview

The concept of social stratification is interpreted differently by the various theoretical
perspectives of sociology. Proponents of action theory have suggested that since social
stratification is commonly found in developed societies, hierarchy may be necessary in order
to stabilize social structure. Talcott Parsons, an American sociologist, asserted that stability
and social order are regulated, in part, by universal value although universal values were not
identical with "consensus" but could as well be the impetus for ardent conflict as it had been
multiple times through history. Parsons never claimed that universal values in and by
themselves "satisfied" the functional prerequisites of a society, indeed, the constitution of
society was a much more complicated codification of emerging historical factors. The so-
called conflict theories, such as Marxism, point to the inaccessibility of resources and lack of
social mobility found in stratified societies. Many sociological theorists have criticized the
extent to which the working classes are unlikely to advance socioeconomically; the wealthy
tend to hold political power which they use to exploit the proletariat intergenerationally.
Theorists such as Ralf Dahrendorf, however, have noted the tendency toward an enlarged
middle-class in modern Western societies due to the necessity of an educated workforce in
technological and service economies. Various social and political perspectives concerning
globalization, such as dependency theory, suggest that these effects are due to the change of
workers to the third world. yes--192.248.24.10 (talk) 04:22, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
[edit] Karl Marx
Main articles: Marxism, Historical materialism, and Base and superstructure

In Marxist theory, the capitalist mode of production consists of two main economic parts: the
substructure and the Superstructure. The base comprehends the relations of production —
employer-employee work conditions, the technical division of labour, and property relations
— into which people enter to produce the necessities and amenities of life. In the capitalist
system, the ruling classes own the means of production, which essentially includes the
working class itself as they only have their own labour power ('wage labour') to offer in order
to survive. These relations fundamentally determine the ideas and philosophies of a society,
constituting the superstructure. A temporary status quo is achieved by various methods of
social control employed, consciously or unconsciously, by the bourgeoisie in the course of
various aspects of social life. Through the ideology of the ruling class, false consciousness is
promoted both through ostensibly political and non-political institutions, but also through the
arts and other elements of culture. Marx believed the capitalist mode would eventually give
way, through its own internal conflict, to revolutionary consciousness and the development of
egalitarian communist society.
According to Marvin Harris[4] and Tim Ingold,[5] Lewis Henry Morgan's accounts of
egalitarian hunter-gatherers formed part of Karl Marx and Engels's inspiration for
communism. Morgan spoke of a situation in which people living in the same community
pooled their efforts and shared the rewards of those efforts fairly equally. He called this
"communism in living." But when Marx expanded on these ideas, he still emphasized an
economically oriented culture, with property defining the fundamental relationships between
people.[6] Yet, issues of ownership and property are arguably less emphasized in hunter-
gatherer societies.[7] This, combined with the very different social and economic situations of
hunter-gatherers may account for many of the difficulties encountered when implementing
communism in industrialized states. As Ingold points out: "The notion of communism,
removed from the context of domesticity and harnessed to support a project of social
engineering for large-scale, industrialized states with populations of millions, eventually
came to mean something quite different from what Morgan had intended: namely, a principle
of redistribution that would override all ties of a personal or familial nature, and cancel out
their effects."[5]
[edit] Max Weber
Main articles: Three-component theory of stratification and Tripartite classification of authority

Max Weber was strongly influenced by Marx's ideas, but rejected the possibility of effective
communism, arguing that it would require an even greater level of detrimental social control
and bureaucratization than capitalist society. Moreover, Weber criticized the dialectical
presumption of proletariat revolt, believing it to be unlikely.[8] Instead, he developed the
three-component theory of stratification and the concept of life chances. Weber supposed
there were more class divisions than Marx suggested, taking different concepts from both
functionalist and Marxist theories to create his own system. He emphasized the difference
between class, status, and power, and treated these as separate but related sources of power,
each with different effects on social action. Working at half a century later than Marx, Weber
claimed there to be in fact four main classes: the upper class, the white collar workers, the
petite bourgeoisie, and the manual working class. Weber's theory more-closely resembles
modern Western class structures, although economic status does not seem to depend strictly
on earnings in the way Weber envisioned.
Weber derived many of his key concepts on social stratification by examining the social
structure of Germany. He noted that contrary to Marx's theories, stratification was based on
more than simply ownership of capital. Weber examined how many members of the
aristocracy lacked economic wealth yet had strong political power. Many wealthy families
lacked prestige and power, for example, because they were Jewish. Weber introduced three
independent factors that form his theory of stratification hierarchy; class, status, and power:

 Class: A person's economic position in a society. Weber differs from Marx in that he does not
see this as the supreme factor in stratification. Weber noted how managers of corporations or
industries control firms they do not own; Marx would have placed such a person in the
proletariat.
 Status: A person's prestige, social honor, or popularity in a society. Weber noted that
political power was not rooted in capital value solely, but also in one's individual status. Poets or
saints, for example, can possess immense influence on society with often little economic worth.
 Power: A person's ability to get their way despite the resistance of others. For example,
individuals in state jobs, such as an employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or a
member of the United States Congress, may hold little property or status but they still hold
immense power.[9]

[edit] Anthropological overview

Anthropology

Fields
 Archaeology
Biological anthropology
Cultural anthropology
Linguistic anthropology
Social anthropology

Frameworks

Applied anthropology
Ethnography and Ethnology
Participant observation
Qualitative methods
Holism
Cultural relativism

Key concepts

Culture · Society
Prehistory · Evolution
Kinship and descent
Marriage · Family
Material culture · Gender
Race · Ethnicity
Functionalism
Colonialism · Ethnocentrism
Postcolonialism

Areas and subfields

Anthropology of religion
Biocultural anthropology
Cognitive anthropology
Ecological anthropology
Economic anthropology
Evolutionary anthropology
Forensic anthropology
Media anthropology
Medical anthropology
Palaeoanthropology
Transpersonal anthropology
Urban anthropology
Visual anthropology

Related articles
 Sociology
Prehistory
History of anthropology
Outline of anthropology
Category:Anthropologists

 v
 d
 e

Anthropologists have found that social stratification is not the standard among all societies.
John Gowdy writes, "Assumptions about human behaviour that members of market societies
believe to be universal, that humans are naturally competitive and acquisitive, and that social
stratification is natural, do not apply to many hunter-gatherer peoples."[10] Non-stratified
egalitarian or acephalous ("headless") societies exist which have little or no concept of social
hierarchy, political or economic status, class, or even permanent leadership.
[edit] Kinship-orientation
Anthropologists identify egalitarian cultures as "kinship-oriented," because they appear to
value social harmony more than wealth or status. These cultures are contrasted with
economically oriented cultures (including states) in which status and material wealth are
prized, and stratification, competition, and conflict are common. Kinship-oriented cultures
actively work to prevent social hierarchies from developing because they believe that such
stratification could lead to conflict and instability.[citation needed] Reciprocal altruism is one
process by which this is accomplished.
A good example is given by Richard Borshay Lee in his account of the Khoisan, who practice
"insulting the meat." Whenever a hunter makes a kill, he is ceaselessly teased and ridiculed
(in a friendly, joking fashion) to prevent him from becoming too proud or egotistical. The
meat itself is then distributed evenly among the entire social group, rather than kept by the
hunter. The level of teasing is proportional to the size of the kill. Lee found this out when he
purchased an entire cow as a gift for the group he was living with, and was teased for weeks
afterward about it (since obtaining that much meat could be interpreted as showing off).[11]
Another example is the Indigenous Australians of Groote Eylandt and Bickerton Island, off
the coast of Arnhem Land, who have arranged their entire society, spirituality, and economy
around a kind of gift economy called renunciation. According to David H. Turner, in this
arrangement, every person is expected to give everything of any resource they have to any
other person who needs or lacks it at the time. This has the benefit of largely eliminating
social problems like theft and relative poverty. However, misunderstandings obviously arise
when attempting to reconcile Aboriginal renunciative economics with the
competition/scarcity-oriented economics introduced to Australia by Anglo-European
colonists.[12] See also the Original affluent society.

[edit] Social impact

Social stratification has been shown to cause many social problems. A comprehensive study
of major world economies revealed that homicide, infant mortality, obesity, teenage
pregnancies, emotional depression, teen suicide, and prison population all correlate with
higher social inequality.[13]

[edit] Three characteristics of stratified systems

1. The rankings apply to social categories of people who share a common characteristic
without necessarily interacting or identifying with each other. The process of being ranked
can be changed by the person being ranked.[14]

 Example: The way we rank people differently by race, gender, and social class

2. People's life experiences and opportunities depend on their social category. This
characteristic can be changed by the amount of work a person can put into their interests.[14]

 Example: The greater advantage had by the son or daughter of a king to have a successful
life than the son or daughter of a minimum-wage factory worker, because the king has a greater
amount of resources than the factory worker — The use of resources can influence others.

3. The ranks of different social categories change slowly over time. This has occurred
frequently in the United States ever since the American revolution. The U.S. constitution has
been altered several times to specify rights for everyone.[14]

 Examples:
o The Declaration of Independence: abolished the monarchy
o Article I, Section 9 of U.S. Constitution - "No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the
United States" - abolished aristocracy
o Thirteenth Amendment: ended slavery in the United States
o Fourteenth Amendment: granted African-Americans citizenship in the United States
o Fifteenth Amendment: ended the denial of suffrage based on race
o Nineteenth Amendment: the United States government's recognition of women's
suffrage
o The Civil Rights Act of 1964: ended racial segregation in public places in the United
States — also extended the right to vote